By Sarojini Dutt

How complying with MCC conditions would  result in Sri Lanka gifting the entire country on a platter to the US for ever, is dealt with further down this piece 

What is one word for an Agreement where one party to an Agreement has to fulfil his part of the Contract before the Contract is signed and, where the other party fulfils his part of the Contract only after the Contract is signed? That word is, ‘MCC-Compact’.

Controverting Edelman who said that the ‘gift’ is unconditional another page of the MCC document was shown

The conditions imposed on Sri Lanka by the MCC are: All State Lands to be mapped out; All State Lands to be inventorised; a parcel fabric of all State Lands to be prepared; The Land Registry to be converted from the Deed system to the Title Registration system; the Land Registry Records to be Digitalised; a new system of Land valuation to be introduced; All government Grants (of Land) to be  Registered; A Land Policy Bodyto be Established; pass new laws that support reforms under the Title system.

Sri Lanka has done nearly ¾ of what MCC want Sri Lanka to do; only about a quarter remains to be done. From Sri Lanka’s perspective there is now hardly any requirement to sign an ‘Agreement’ Document as most of what the US wanted Sri Lanka to do, has been done; from the US perspective, the balance quarter must mandatorily be complied with if the MCC is to part with the money promised.

The Americans are laughing all the way.

All State Lands have been mapped out, inventorised and a parcel fabric of State Lands done. The Land Registry has been converted from a Deed System to a Title Registration system (this is the ‘Bim Saviya’ Act that was passed in 1998 by Kumaranatunge, a member of another secret subversive organisation of the Whites – the Club of Madrid – dedicated to breaking up Sri Lanka and other Nation States).

With Sri Lanka responding subserviently to the crack of the MCC whip, MCC requires Sri Lanka to digitalise the Land Registry, establish a new system of Land valuation, register all Government Land grants, establish a Land Policy Body and pass new laws that would support Land Reforms under the Title System.

On these conditions which MCC requires Sri Lanka to act on and which remain to be completed, Sri Lanka has already taken the initiative to have them implemented.

To digitalise the Land Registry, the US advertised in the local newspapers and selected a Sri Lankan contractor, Harin Gunawardena, to do the job of establishing the infrastructure for digitalising the Land Registry, under US instructions. The Registrar General of Lands, Gunasekera, and the Surveyor General, Udayakantha, devotedly permitted the Americans access to their offices and work on the process of digitalising the Register. The process is underway, with American input, unsupervised.

A similar situation exists in the Valuation department.

Gunasekera, Udayakantha and their successors are put on notice; they could however redeem themselves by assisting the State.

The double-speak of the Americans is quite evident. In their ‘Constraints’ analysis a primary concern of the Americans is their inability to access and buy-up land in Sri Lanka.

Hence most, if not all, of the conditions laid down by the MCC for Sri Lanka to comply with, is to give the Americans easy access to buy-up or lease land in Sri Lanka.

What then is the motive of the MCC compact? The objective of the MCC is to create the necessary conditions in Sri Lanka to enable the United States to buy up Sri Lanka for a song.

Where then is the double-speak? The MCC tells Sri Lanka (and other poor nations) that they are here to alleviate poverty. If they have access to Sri Lanka’s land and buy up the land of the poverty-stricken farmer, the MCC does not alleviate poverty, they only aggravate poverty.

The MCC slogan, ‘alleviating poverty’, is a good sell; poor countries, because of their poverty, are vulnerable, malleable, and susceptible to economic blackmail; for example, ‘if you do not conform to our conditions, we take our ‘gift’ and go to a more appreciative country who would conform’.

Yes, there are many poor countries in the world; and the world today is a predator’s market for land-grabs. It could be argued that what motivates MCC is not altruism but naked self interest.

In the last 70 years Sri Lanka has been able to maintain sovereignty of her land, not through an Army that would deter foreign aggression, but with Buddhism, a deeply engrained culture, a supportive Constitution, an incorruptible judiciary, legislature and Administration and, an Army that is excellently capable of dealing with the internal proxies of foreign military powers.

Consequently, the people of the country own 84% of the land.

Politicians, elected by the people, are only the temporary custodians of that land; they have been delegated the people’s authority to protect the sovereignty of that land and to preserve the fundamental rights of the unborn generations.

To deprive the people of Sri Lanka sovereignty over their land the foreign aggressor has to attack, Buddhism, Sri Lanka’s  culture, Sri Lanka’s Army, Sri Lanka’s supportive Constitution, and the incorruptibility of  Sri Lanka’s judiciary, legislation, and administration.

The attack has begun and the attack is on all fronts. The MCC is an integral part of that attack.

The Corridor from Trincomalee to Colombo is mostly government land given on lease to farmers. One of the conditions laid out by the MCC is to register all Land grants.

Why has the MCC included this condition?

Until about three years ago no foreigner could own land in Sri Lanka. But Wickramasinghe enabled foreigners to own land in the country. However, this is restricted to the 14% of private land available in the market and that too is restricted by extent, to a limit of 50 acres.

The rest of the country’s land, a 84%, is not available for sale; it is only available for lease, only if the  temporary custodian of the land, the President, deems it fit to be leased.

This 84% of Sri Lanka’s land is under the protective hand of the President of the country despite amendments to the Constitution and despite interpretation of the amendments being challenged in the Supreme Court of law.

How could America’s impediment to access 84% of Sri Lanka’s land, as a result of the President’s power, be overcome and how could these powers be devolved to the provinces as is the demand of the TNA?  

How could this ‘restriction’ on this 84% of land being available only for lease and not for sale be removed and such land be made available for outright private sale?

How could the limitation of ownership of land to a maximum of 50 acres be done away with?   

This is where the MCC, Wickramasinghe and Sirisena have colluded.

Wickramasinghe promised the issue of a million deeds to farmers who already have lease ownership to those lands; he and his hirelings have begun issuing deeds for these lands. 

Sirisena  placed the Presidential seal on each one of those million deeds issued, as is mandated by law. 

The MCC has made it one of their mandatory conditions that all Land grants be registered under the Title system; please see the box above captioned ‘Conditions precedent for MCC land investment’.

In short, by issuing a million Land Grants to the farmers, the land has been privatised; by the land being privatised, the power to deal with those lands has been devolved to the respective provincial councils along the MCC Corridor. The issue of  land grants therefore  is not to alleviate  poverty, as is proclaimed, but a necessary ‘precedent’ condition – a condition that has to be met before the MCC donates its ‘gift’ –  that would enable the Americans to buy up land while satisfying  the Eelamists demand for power over ‘land’.

With the MCC electric railway barrier (see map put out by the MCC in Part 1) dividing the North from the South, with the Americans controlling the Corridor from Trinco to Colombo and having the ability to hinder movement of the military between the North and the South, with Land power devolved to the provinces, the separatists have got what the American-backed terrorists fought for before they were wiped out at Nandikadal; Eelam.

The farmers are poor not because of a lack of land; they are poor because they do not obtain, at the appropriate time, the fundamentals necessary for farming, such as seed, water, fertiliser, warehouse facilities for their harvest, markets, price, etc.

Since the farmers continue to be poor, they are encouraged to sell their land (for which they now have deeds) or mortgage their land with lending institutions; when the farmers default on their mortgages the lending institutions would seize the properties mortgaged with them, and sell these properties.

And this is exactly what the MCC wants and that is why the MCC requires, as a precondition, ‘the registration of land grants under the title system’. The MCC would buy all this land for a song.

When land deeds are given to farmers, these lands now become private land; no longer do these lands come under the control of the President (or the Centre); all land powers to these million deeds issued are devolved to the respective provinces.

The Corridor from Trinco to Colombo, approximately 1.2 Million acres of land, is replete with Phosphate, Ilmenite, Monazite, Thorium – a nuclear fuel like uranium – and other precious and rare metals. 

Issuing of a million Deeds – viz a million Land Grants – has removed the restriction on Government lands being available only for lease; these lands are now available for sale, as required by the MCC.

A geopolitical analysis suggests that the US wishes to occupy Sri Lanka and that they propose to do so by buying out the country; they are restricted in a way that there is a limitation on ownership of land by an individual to a maximum of 50 acres.

This restriction and many other restrictions to America’s easy access to buy Sri Lankan Land   have been done away with, in the draft laws prepared by the MCC, unknown to the Sri Lankan public.

One such law was the Land (Special Provisions) Bill presented in Parliament but put on hold by the Supreme Court. This and the Land Bank Bill are some of the mandatory preconditions adduced to in the ‘Conditions precedent to funding activities’ given in the ‘Box’ above as ‘passage of legislation that supports reforms in the title registration system’.

The MCC has been cajoling the Government to sign the MCC agreement before 17 Sep 19. Wickramasinghe, Sirisena, the MCC and others are put on notice that they would be in contempt of Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court should they sign the MCC Agreement before the Supreme Court  give its determination on the plaint filed regarding the constitutionality of the  Land  (Special Provisions) Bill.

The member of the audience who publicly challenged Edelman for being economic with the truth indicated another pernicious issue in the MCC Plan put out by the MCC; he said that the MCC was planning to set up a Land Policy Body which would be the cardinal authority on Land Policy in the country.

This Policy body is empowered to override any decision relating to land made by the Government which is the denouement of Sri Lankan people’s sovereignty and democracy.

And in this policy body are entrenched the Americans and the NGOs, the paid hirelings of the Americans. When Edelman denied this allegation, this individual calmly pointed to the ‘Conditions Precedent for MCC Land Investment’ where establishment of a Land Policy Body is one of the conditions that should be done before the MCC ‘gift’ can be given. 

Then turning to another page in the document in his hand, he showed a wire diagram of this supreme Land Policy making body, as portrayed by the MCC. 

At the apex is the MCC and subordinate to it is the Land Policy Research Council and further below is the Land Policy Office of the Ministry of Lands!

With a very strong possibility of, an Eelam,  a terrorist caliphate in the East (see MCC map), Americans in control of the entire island, of the littoral states in the Bay of Bengal and the Bay being destabilised by the caliphate terrorists,  Sirisena, Wickramasinghe and the entire cabinet (collective responsibility)  and are put on notice.  

At the end of the sessions this writer interviewed the person who flustered Edelman and had her red faced. He spoke of the MCC as a US Foreign Policy tool (about which Edelman pleaded ignorance), the Atlantic Charter as the beginning of the American Empire and interestingly about a reciprocal process where the boot is on the other foot and Sri Lanka invests in Land in the US, on the same conditionalities that the US has imposed on Sri Lanka. This writer shall report on this in the next piece.